News

29.07.2024

Tax & Financial Standards New Judgments of the ECJ For July 2024

Tax & Financial Standards New Judgments of the ECJ For July 2024

 

July

 

С-87/23 of 4 July 2024

Value added tax – Supply of services for consideration - Non-profit association carrying out projects financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) – Supply of training services through subcontractors – Inclusion of the amount of the subsidy in the taxable amount - Concepts of ‘taxable person’ and ‘economic activity’

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

Criteria for assessing a taxable person’s economic activity. The supply of training services invoiced by a non-profit association, which supply has been subcontracted for the most part to third parties and received subsidies from European funds constitutes a supply of services for consideration. The status of non-profit association enjoyed by an association does not preclude the fact that that activity is comparable to the typical conduct of an economic operator in the same sector, that association from being regarded as a taxable person carrying out an economic activity.

Concepts of ‘taxable person’ and ‘economic activity’.

Proceedings between an Association and the Tax Authority concerning the latter’s refusal to allow the Association to deduct input value added tax in respect of invoices sent to it by undertakings providing training services which that association had subcontracted to those undertakings.

С-179/23 of 4 July 2024

Value added tax – Supply of services for consideration – Management fees collected by a collective management organisation for copyright and related rights for the collection, distribution and payment of remuneration due to rightholders – Remuneration not forming part of a taxable transaction

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

Taxable transactions. A collective management organisation for copyright and related rights supplies services where, first, it collects, distributes and pays, by law, to rightholders the remuneration owed to them by certain users defined by law and it deducts from that remuneration a management fee which is due to it by those rightholders and which is intended to cover the costs incurred by that activity, in the event that the remuneration thus collected on behalf of those rightholders does not constitute consideration for services.

Proceedings concerning a legislative amendment imposing value added tax on the activity of collective management organisations for copyright and related rights in relation to the collection, distribution and payment of remuneration due to the holders of those rights, where that remuneration does not fall within the scope of the VAT Directive.

С-425/22 of 4 July 2024

Judicial cooperation in civil and commercial matters — Jurisdiction in matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict — Place where the damage occurred — Cartel declared contrary to Article 101 TFEU and Article 53 of the Agreement on the European Economic Area — Subsidiaries established in different Member States — Direct damage exclusively suffered by subsidiaries — Action for damages from the parent company — Concept of „the place where the harmful event occurred“

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

Jurisdiction in matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict. Action for damages for infringements of competition law. Harm suffered by subsidiaries. Registered office of the parent company. Economic unit Concept of „the place where the harmful event occurred“, does not cover the registered office of a parent company bringing an action for damages for harm suffered solely by its subsidiaries on account of anticompetitive conduct of a third party.

Proceedings concerning a claim for compensation brought by M for the losses suffered by it on account of anticompetitive practices committed by MB in breach of Article 101 TFEU and Article 53 of the Agreement on the European Economic Area.

С-182/23 of 11 July 2024

Common system of value added tax - Taxable supply of goods - Transfer of the ownership of agricultural land, against payment of compensation, by reason of a decision of the public authority – Expropriation

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

Transfer, by way of expropriation, of the ownership of parcels of agricultural land, against payment of compensation to the owner of that land.

Proceedings concerning an application for annulment of a tax ruling.

С-184/23 of 11 July 2024

Common system of value added tax - Taxable persons – Option for Member States to treat as a single taxable person, known as a ‘VAT group’, persons who, while legally independent, are closely bound to one another by financial, economic and organisational links – Services provided within the VAT group – Taxation of such services – Recipient of the services not entitled to deduct VAT – Risk of tax losses

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

Bringing together of several persons into a single taxable person. Services provided for consideration between persons belonging to the same VAT group.

Proceedings concerning a foundation’s liability for value added tax.

С-265/23 of 11 July 2024

Judicial cooperation in criminal matters – Fight against organised crime - Right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial - Excessive length of the pre-trial stage of the criminal proceedings – Substantive infringements of procedural rules, but which are capable of being remedied, affecting the indictment – Right of the accused person to have the criminal proceedings against him or her brought to an end

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

National legislation which removes, in the course of criminal proceedings brought against an accused person, the right of that person to have those proceedings brought to an end where substantial infringements of procedural rules affecting the indictment, but which are capable of being remedied, have not been remedied.

Criminal proceedings brought against DM and other natural persons, on charges of participation in an organised criminal group and corruption.

С-409/22 of 11 July 2024

Payment services in the internal market - Power of attorney of an agent acting on behalf of the account holder – Copy of the power of attorney with an ‘apostille’ certificate - Consent to the execution of a payment transaction – Unauthorised payment transactions – Liability of the payment service provider for those transactions – Burden of proof - Concept of ‘payment instrument’ and ‘authentication’

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

Power of attorney, by which the holder of a bank account authorises an agent to make a disposal of assets, on that account, by means of a payment order. Payment transaction, executed on the basis of a power of attorney granted by the holder of the bank account, which was formalised as a notarial document and bears an ‘apostille’ certificate.

Proceedings concerning (i) the payment of sums of money corresponding to unauthorised banking transactions on the assets in the bank account of the applicant in the main proceedings, (ii) compensation for the material damage caused by those banking transactions and (iii) the applicable statutory default interest.